Mirror Dream Tree V.4.54. Tao Space Realm

rin steps onto the tenth floor.

Instead of a white-tiled chamber, he finds himself standing in a boundless grassland, sunlight spilling across the horizon.

His eyes narrow.

Inwardly, he mutters, soone opened a small world, a space no different from reality itself.

Outside, the elders erupt into quarrels.

Each argues to claim rin as a disciple.

They dare speak so boldly only because none of them believes he can pass the tenth floor.

For the puppet awaiting within is a Tao Puppet, and only a Tao Space cultivator can defeat it.

Their words choke in silence as the projection shifts.

A white tal figure appears in front of rin, aura heavy enough to shake the heavens.

The puppet speaks, voice low and resonant, “For a long ti, no one has challenged .”

rin freezes, startled at the spark of wisdom in the construct.

Then realisation dawns—after endless years, a Tao Puppet may indeed awaken self-awareness.

He steadies himself and asks, “Has anyone ever defeated you?”

The puppet’s answer is flat, cold, and final.

“No, and it will never happen.”

rin’s lips curve into a faint smile.

“Are you sure? Because I think I can defeat you.”

The puppet laughs, tallic and thunderous.

“You, a re peak Ascendant, think to challenge ?”

“Why not?” rin replies evenly.

“Then let show you the gulf you cannot cross,” the puppet says.

Its field erupts, flooding the grassland.

Reality twists as space turns blank and white.

The crushing pressure slams into rin from every direction.

His ribs groan, his breath halts, his heart stutters to silence.

His knees hit the ground.

The puppet’s voice cuts down coldly, “Do you accept defeat?”

Bones crack, breaking one after another.

But instead of surrender, a black light bursts from within rin’s body.

It sears through the suffocating white field, shredding it into fragnts.

Fur ripples across his body.

His face elongates into a wolf’s maw.

Claws rip from his hands and feet.

A black werewolf, double rin’s size, towers in his place.

Outside, the sect master and elders gasp in disbelief.

“Tao Body.”

“More than that… a new Tao Body.”

In the cultivation path, beyond the best spiritual body lies only the Tao Body.

And a true Tao Body grants strength to defy realms, allowing one below Tao Space to wield its power for a ti.

rin has forged his own.

The five elental spiritual bodies combined, bound by destruction’s principle, fused with the wolf’s feral essence.

The Destruction Wolf Spiritual Body.

Power erupts from him in a storm of annihilation.

A black field spreads out, colliding with the puppet’s white domain.

One side is pure power.

The other is raw destruction.

The grassland quakes as black destruction and white power grind into one another.

The two domains cancel out, neither overwhelming the other, their principles locked at the sa level.

The puppet’s tallic voice rumbles, “You advanced your spiritual body into a Tao Body. You’ve reached my strength—but can you sustain it?”

rin’s eyes gleam, cold and sharp.

He raises his hand, finger pointed at the puppet, and utters flatly, “Destruction Beam.”

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From his fingertip erupts a black ray, condensed to a single line, its aura dripping with corrosion.

The puppet does not retreat.

Its body is forged from the Law of Power, a construct of overwhelming force, not endurance.

It thrusts its palm forward.

A tidal wave of raw power bursts out, shredding the air, rending the grassland to splinters, annihilating all before it.

The two forces collide.

The wave crashes outward, spreading destruction across the false world.

But the beam does not shatter.

It pierces through, cutting the flood of power, stabbing into the puppet’s hand.

At the point of contact, silver-white tal darkens, turning pitch black.

The sound of rot spreads like cracking ice.

The puppet jerks its hand back, but its palm is already corroding, fleshless tal disintegrating into dust.

rin’s voice is calm, yet filled with killing intent.

“Anything below Tao rank will decay.”

The puppet stares at him, silent for the first ti.

Half its palm gone, the truth is undeniable.

It is a Tao-level puppet, but not every piece of its fra was forged with Tao materials.

And destruction exploits the weakest link.

rin’s beam carves deeper into the puppet’s fra.

The chest, plated with Tao tal, resists, but the joints, the layered plates at the shoulders and thighs, begin to corrode and crumble.

The puppet staggers back, and for the first ti, its voice wavers.

“Enough… I surrender.”

The words ripple across the grassland, wrong, almost blasphemous.

A puppet, bound by command, should not yield.

Yet this one, with consciousness awakened over endless years, carries both the advantage of wisdom—and the disadvantage of fear.

Fear of death.

The field collapses, the grassland fading into mist, and then into white stone.

Outside, silence grips the square.

Every disciple, elder, and even the sect master stares in disbelief.

Never, in the history of the Purple Jade Sect, had a new disciple stepped into the tower and erged not as outer, not as inner, not even as core—but directly as a candidate for the sect master’s mantle.

When rin steps out, his eyes calm, his aura sealed, the square erupts into whispers that shake the air.

The sect master wastes no ti.

He descends with elders at his side, his sleeve brushing away the crowd, and brings rin to the inner hall for questioning.

Hours later, satisfied yet wary of the answers, they escort him to his reward.

A mountain of his own, veined with the finest spiritual essence, its pulse like a living heart beneath the stone.

Any technique of the sect, opened freely to him.

The title of candidate disciple bestowed with weight that had never touched another so soon.

rin rests a night, silent beneath the purple fog, then at dawn walks to the Sutra Pavilion.

He climbs to the higher floors where Tao-realm cultivation thods slumber.

His path had reached its limit—the peak of the Ascendant Realm—because he lacked the foundation of Tao.

Without a Tao cultivation thod, the step into Tao Space was sealed.

He searches for the continuation of the Illusionary Jade Technique but finds none.

Instead, two scrolls catch his eye.

The Five Elent Jade Sutra—nurturing the material, carrying cultivation to Tao Lord.

The Four Elephant Jade Sutra—governing energy, also reaching Tao Lord.

He takes them both, for his Tao seeks to weave illusion into reality, needing both the substance of matter and the current of force.

A third scroll falls into his hands.

The Five Elent Body, a Tao Body technique, resonates with his chosen path.

With the three techniques, rin returns to his mountain.

He lays down an array, sealing the world away from intrusion.

And with steady breath, he steps into deep retreat, aiming at the barrier that separates man from Tao.

His next step—Tao Space Realm.

Three months later, the sky above Purple Jade Sect darkens under the weight of Tribulation Clouds.

The cloud’s target is rin’s mountain.

rin closes his array and steps out of his cave.

The first thunderbolt strikes, and he takes it with his body.

His Tao Body easily withstands the early tribulation lightning.

Bolts fall again and again.

After the twenty-seventh strike, cracks spread across his Tao Body.

The tribulation does not end.

Disciples gather across the sect, their faces pale as they watch the mountain blaze with lightning.

Every test differs, moulded by a cultivator’s strength and talent.

For rin, the trial grows harsher.

When his Tao Body can no longer endure, he releases his new field.

The sky transforms into an endless ocean above him.

Gasps ripple through the sect as the thunder crashes into the ocean again and again.

When the forty-fifth strike falls, silence grips the sect.

The two current candidate disciples withstood only forty-five bolts.

If rin surpasses them, his potential eclipses theirs.

Whispers spread like fire, so filled with awe, others with fear.

The tribulation continues.

Lightning tears down without pause.

After the sixty-first strike, even the elders grow uneasy.

They stare at the mountain, wondering if such monstrous talent will beco a blessing or a disaster for the sect.

Finally, after the eighty-first strike, the clouds disperse.

rin stands bloodied but unbroken.

The crowd remains frozen, unable to speak.

After the clouds disperse, a beam of golden source energy falls from the sky.

The light engulfs rin, healing his cracked Tao Body.

His source energy refines under the blessing, and his cultivation stabilises in the initial Tao Space Realm.

The golden beam does not stop.

rin’s aura rises steadily, from initial to interdiate, then to late, and finally to the peak of Tao Space Realm.

All breaths catch in the throats of those watching.

Whispers tremble through the air, wondering if rin will step directly into the Tao Master Realm.

But his aura halts.

Instead of advancing further, rin’s cultivation regresses to the late Tao Space Realm.

The elders exchange glances, instantly understanding.

rin himself suppressed the breakthrough.

He chose stability and long-term potential over imdiate power.

This decision, more than the lightning, unsettles the crowd.

Disciples realise such control is more frightening than talent alone.

After the reward fades, rin nods calmly to the watching sect.

Without a word, he returns to his mountain.

He activates the array, closing the peak once more in seclusion.

No one present believes Yu Feng made the wrong choice.

rin returns to his cave, and the first thing he does is check himself.

He understands why his breakthrough happened so quickly.

To step into the Tao Space Realm, one must open a small space within the sea of consciousness.

rin had already done this before.

All he needed was to rge his source energy with the spirit core of his illusion space.

Because of that, the field he ford was naturally the ocean field.

During his two years of wandering, he had comprehended only the ocean.

After examining his state, he confirms his strength has doubled compared to when he broke through to the third stage.

He knows now he would not be so easily defeated by that senior’s third-stage disciple.

His mind drifts to the two sutras he claid in the Sutra Pavilion: the Five Elent Sutra and the Four Elephant Sutra.

To break through to the Tao Master Realm, he must refine his source energy further.

The Five Elent Sutra requires forming five kinds of source energy—Fire, Earth, tal, Water, and Wood.

The Four Elephant Sutra requires forming four kinds of source energy—Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth.

In both sutras, Fire, Earth, and Water overlap.

But they carry two different prices.

In the Five Elent Sutra, the three belong to the principle of material.

In the Four Elephant Sutra, they belong to the principle of energy.

rin closes his eyes.

He begins with the Five Elent Sutra, drawing on his deep understanding of water.

In his illusion space, he starts condensing the first form of water source energy.